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Settle in, settle in. On Friday I’m flying to Cleveland to preach at a church that my buddy Andy started over a year ago. I love preaching and I’m working through a few thoughts, very mid-teaching 1st Draft-ish 28-year-old thoughts, but you are a free audience and I’ll take advantage of that. I’m going to be talking about wrath and mercy, both God’s and ours, so there’s some context.
Ideas of the wrath and mercy of God range from God over humanity to Christ and individual humans; God’s wrath on nations and people groups to Jesus’ wrath on Pharisees. In contemplating a God’s wrath on people groups…I stop almost before I begin. I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know, no matter how much academic text or theological commentary I read on the subject, I do not know. I can give glimpses of formulated thoughts, but never fully articulated, secure thoughts.
Ah but St. Peter! To our gracious rescue! “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” Freedom to shrug my shoulders. When confronted with deeper questions and ponderings on the wrathful movement of God. I do not feel pressure. I do not have to explain everything. All I can do is tell of my own hope, no more and no less.
St. Peter allows me to tell of my hope I have currently, at 28, not the hope that I’ll have when I’m 70. It takes years of contemplation, questioning, research, prayer, and endless patience to begin to understand theories and theologies of God’s wrath. I am not there yet. I do not possess the wisdom of an elderly man, but I am on the path. So I shrug and say, “Get back to me in 50 years. Maybe I’ll have an inch more of an answer.”
There you go, for what it’s worth.
“You don’t look at atrocities and ask, ‘What is God trying to teach the world through this horror?’ There are kinds of suffering that your effort to bring meaning, ineffability distorts and destroys the potential for any meaning whatsoever. If you think suffering can be quantified in some type of learning principle, you have made mockery of your own suffering, let alone the suffering of others. Dont look for meaning, meaning will come to you, frankly meaning will come knock on your door in ways you do not need to be looking… You don’t have much to do with God, He has much to do with you.”—
Dan Allender, The Story Workshop (via andrewjbauman)
(Source: theallendercenter.org)
I’m at The Davis Theater in Lincoln Square on a Tuesday night at 10:00 pm. One other guy in the crowd. It’s a beat up old theater, probably was nice in the 90s but is kind of drabby now. I’m seeing The Avengers because strangers I read on the internet said it was good for a laugh. I have a bag of salted popcorn soaked in butter product and a cola so big our ancestors would be ashamed of us.
This is me in America on May 8 2012.
My future father-in-law: What did you name your new company?
Me: Joshua Longbrake Photography, LLC.
My future father-in-law: Your name? That’s it?
Me: What’s the name of your law firm you started again? Oh that’s right. Last Name, Last Name, Last Name & Last Name, LLC.
(Got him.)
Red Eye nails it. They give out free papers filled with advertisements, but they are totally fine with print newspapers dying. Why pay for printing when people can get their same product with no overhead? Not many newspapers see it this way.
Anyway.
Ah, the name of God and vanity.
“God I miss her.”
“God, I miss her.”
“God! I miss her.”
“God…I miss her.”
That we, as little humans in a vast cosmos, are permitted to utter any name of God is incomprehensible (much less the cross!). Every utterance of God should be, though it is not always, out of awe.
And there are times when the experience of reality, of God’s created reality, is so intense, so deep and true and terrifying, that there is no other word to utter than a name of God. May it never come from my tongue flippantly.
Every year without fail on April 24th, usually in the evening around 5 or 6 CST, I get a call from my dad to reminisce together about my mother. We usually talk about her for a few minutes, laughing about her quirks and how much she loved me and my sister, and then my dad always begins to talk about his memories of me, and he does the same for my sister, retelling her childhood tales, which she never tires of hearing. Tonight he told me that when I was a year or two old I would not sit in one of those old winding-rocker metal chairs that hang from a bar a foot above your head. Apparently I hated being out of control of my surroundings and restrained. So much has changed in 28 years.
My favorite thing, my dad said, was my Johnny Jump Up.
Johnny Jump Up was a swing that hung inside a door frame from elastic cords, a restless kid’s dream come true. My father said that I would sit in that thing for hours, bouncing up and down and back and forth. “You sure did beat up the insides of the door frame with that bouncing chair.”
“I bet that got to you at first,” I told him.
“Nah, it didn’t matter. You were happy and we loved that. Plus it got you out of our hair for a little bit.”
“Yeah. And because you let me be on the more free, explorative side my whole life, starting with things like that chair, maybe that’s why I’ve been such a wanderlust this whole time. Or I’m being overly-analytical but whatever I like the thought.”
I love it that I can count on my dad’s phone call every year on this date, mostly because he does it out of intention as well as desire. I cherish telling stories and missing mom together and talking about the fun we had with her, how much anxiety she had/I have (thanks mom), and how much of a character she was. She could jump into these voices, quickly play a part for me that got me rolling with laughter. How else do I say it, but God I miss her.
I can tell you this: after 16 years the memories get more and more idealized. My mother seems more lovely, wonderful, close to perfect, and I start forget the hard parts of who she was and the wrongs she committed. In a way, that’s ok with me. May it be a glimpse forgiveness, how God sees us.
Today I miss my mother, but like no other time before I am thankful for my father’s consistency and pursuit. My sister and I, and if I may speak for my step-mother, Nanci as well, are better people because of it.
Dr. Tyson messes with my mind. He’s the best preacher I’ve ever heard.
Listen humans. From now until August all I’m thinking about and doing revolves around the marrying of lady, thus all I want to write about is marriage and weddings and design details and apartment hunting and so on, and my guess is that you don’t want to read that blog. Even I don’t want to read that blog.
My point is I’m sparing you and so you’re welcome and I’ll let you know where we’re registered so you can buy us things.
“Keebs, can we register for this replica Calder mobile for our new place?”
“You’re cute and weird. Sure.”
Those words…the truth will set you free…the truth will set you free…I can’t get away from them. They are more than wise words; they are a portal to peace. And who am I that I am allowed to be curious? What a gift! What grace!
I study Tom Waits’ music academically. I look for the patterns. I listen for the musical movements. Why did he go from there to there? What experience is he communicating? What do I know of it? And then the truths pop up like gospel, over here and over there. And it makes sense.
My friend Michael took me to an art show called Typeforce 3 on the south side of Chicago. Our friend Kyle had a piece in the show, so we went to support him and to see a good study on letters. Now I don’t know how to design anything. I have Illustrator and InDesign and I’ve never opened them because they scare me, like the length of The Brothers Karamazov. Truthfully, I don’t want to be a graphic designer or a typographer, but I’ll seek out art shows because the artists are trying to tap into something true, and almost every time my eyes are opened in a new way. (Kyle, your piece was amazing.) Michael is a priest in that he often takes me to places where my soul can be curious and my heart is healed a little bit more than it was earlier that day.
Architecture: same. I have no training and most often I don’t understand architecture, but I love learning about it. I put up Frank Gehry sketches and Richard Serra sketches on my wall. They are childishly simple but those artists take those ideas and turn them into beautiful realities. I stare at the sketches, trying to soak up some of their residue. My friend Shannon collects autographs of people he admires and sits with them, feeling their grooves and noting the handwriting. He’s doing the same thing and I learned the value of this from him. He’s trying to grab remnants for himself from curious souls.
So that’s why I went to Mies van der Rohe’s grave a few days ago on his birthday. He’s buried at Graceland Cemetery on the corner of Irving Park and Clark in Chicago, just a mile from my apartment. Mies van der Rohe was a German architect who designed some remarkable buildings in Chicago. I sat by his grave and thanked him for making beautiful buildings, and like Shannon with autographs, I tried to grab remnants.
I studied to be a pastor, and I’ve found that I spend equal time with painters and poets as I do with theologians. I need them all. They are my pastoral counsel, my brotherhood and sisterhood. At times I’ve questioned my direction, fearful that I didn’t choose wisely, or that I’ll always be pursuing my second or third passion in being a pastor, sitting closely behind photography or writing or whatever the flavor of the day happens to be. But the openness of God, the God of a will of freedom, let’s me grab them all and play. To be a pastor will be to pull a little bit from here and a little bit from there. There’s truth over there, and there, and right here.
Thank you, Wendell Berry. Thank you, Anne Lamott. Thank you, John Baldessari. Thank you, Marina Abramavić. Thank you, thank you, Tom Waits. Thank you, Kirby O’Connell. Thank you, Walter Brueggermann. And thank you, Mies van der Rohe. Thank you for the times you’ve preached truth in your own language and for the paths to the peace of God that you’ve created.
Apple Store Employee: Would you like a 1-on-1 session to help you set up your new iPhone?
Kirby: No. My boyfriend uses Apple products. I’m sure he can help me.
Apple Store Employee: No problem. When that gets annoying feel free to come back in any time for some help.
